Bellman Jonathan D. Chopin's Polish Ballade: Op. 38 as Narrative of National Martyrdom

Oxford University Press, 2010. - 214 pp.: musical examplesChopin's Second Ballade, Op. 38 is frequently performed, and takes only seven or so minutes to play. Yet the work remains very poorly understood--disagreement prevails on issues from its tonic and two-key structure to its posited relationship with the poems of Adam Mickiewicz. Chopin's Polish Ballade is a reexamination and close analysis of this famous work, revealing the Ballade as a piece with a powerful political story to tell. Through the general musical styles and specific references in the Ballade, which use both operatic strategies and approaches developed in programmatic piano pieces for amateurs, author Jonathan Bellman traces a clear narrative thread to contemporary French operas. His careful historical exegesis of previously ignored musical and cultural contexts brings to light a host of new insights about this remarkable piece, which, as Bellman shows, reflects the cultural preoccupations of the Polish ?migr?s in mid-1830s Paris, pining with bitter nostalgia for a homeland now under Russian domination. This vital connection to the extramusical culture of its day forms the basis for a plausible relationship with the nationalistic poetry of Mickiewicz. Chopin's Polish Ballade also solves the long-standing conundrum of the two extant versions of the Ballade, making an important point about the flexible notion of "work" that Chopin embraced.List of Musical ExamplesTwo Versions, Two Keys, and "Certain Poems of Mickiewicz"
Genesis of Narrative Process
Stories om Tones
Amateur Program Music
Ballad Poetry and Musical Form
Hearing Konrad Wallenrod: The First Ballade, op.23
Overview and Stylistic Summary of the First Ballade
Konrad Wallenrod: Plot and Structure
Konrad Wallenrod as Ballade Scenario
The Lay of Aldona's fate
Op.38 and the Genre Issue
A Formal Overwiew of Chopin's Second Ballade
The Second Ballade and the Sonata Problem
Ballade as Genre
The Operatic Ballade to 1831
The Polish Pilgrims and the Operatic Imperative
A Pilgrims' Ballade; a Polish Ballade
The Great Migration and Polish Culture in Exile
Personal Anguish and Literary Apotheosis
Sapienti Pauca
Martyrdom and Exile: The Narrative of Chopin's F Major Ballade
Internal Evidence I - the A Material: Siciliano
Internal Evidence II - the B Material: Storm
Internal Evidence III - the C Theme Chopin's Second Ballade as Narrative of National Martyrdom
Versions, Tonic Keys and Mickiewicz Revisited
The Forest and the Trees
Appendix: "A M. F. Chopin sur sa Ballade polonaise", by Felicien Malefille